1. Field of Invention
The Art of Packaging. Novel cartons of paperboard or like material, suitable for containing ice cream or other semi-solid material or the like, carton blanks therefor, carton tubes erected therefrom, carton tubes having one closed end and suitable for filling, closed and filled cartons comprising the ice cream or similar material contained or packaged therein, method of erecting and closing such cartons.
2. Prior Art
Prior art cartons are represented by earlier U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,040,957 and 1,509,383 had numerous disadvantages, the shortcomings of which are discussed in Column 1 of issued U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,115. In this latter patent certain structures were provided which were in some ways improvements over preexisting cartons in the field but which, nevertheless, themselves suffer from certain disadvantages and shortcomings which the present invention is designated to eliminate and correct, among which shortcomings are the inability to adapt on carton erecting, filling, and closing equipment to even marginal changes in caliper or density of the paperboard material of construction, the necessity of modifying existing carton erecting, filling, and closing machinery to facilitate employment of such cartons thereon involving very substantial changes in the equipment, in fact at least five (5) substantial changes in the preexisting equipment (as compared with only three (3) changes required for utilization of the cartons of the present invention on the same erecting, filling, and closing lines), and the tendency of the flaps in the carton of that earlier patent to become "contaminated" with adherent semi-solid ice cream or similar material during process of filling and closing, which of necessity is performed in a sequence which enables the semi-solid material to interfere with entrance of side flap lips beneath the cover panel and also to collect between the various end-closure elements so as to cause machine failure and/or to interfere with their adequate placement and/or securement by adhesion one to another, especially when solid material such as nuts, raisins, or the like are present in the material being filled into the carton, with the result that the carton ends have an unseemly and/or bulging appearance, or are inadequately secured and accordingly involve an unacceptably high percentage of "leakers", especially when superior cartons having superior end closures are available for their replacement.